Matt Rhule announces Nebraska starting LT Teddy Prochazka out for the season with knee injury

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule announced starting left tackle Teddy Prochazka will be out for the season after suffering a knee injury. Rhule spoke to the media on Tuesday morning regarding the injury, while also confirming linebacker Roger Gradney suffered a season-ending leg injury this past week as well.

“Teddy, yesterday, Prochazka, unfortunately, tore his ACL as well,” Rhule said. “So, not the same surgical knee, tore the other knee. So, you know, obviously our heart breaks for both of them. But certainly, Teddy, now this is, you know, going on four surgeries for him. A really, really difficult time for him. So he was right there in the team meeting last night with an unbelievable attitude. He embodies everything we believe in, embodies what’s next. He’ll be a great mentor for Roger. But unfortunate.”

Prochazka dealt with injuries last season but ended up playing the final 10 games with six starts in 2023. He started the final five games of last fall at left tackle.

Following three starts in 2022, Prochazka was lost for the rest of the season due to injury, a year right after it happened after just five games in 2021 when he was a freshman.

Safe to say, Prochazka’s been very unlucky with the injury bug. Prochazka was also named Academic All-Big Ten last year in addition to being a three-time Nebraska Scholar-Athlete Honor Roll member.

As a member of the Class of 2021, Prochazka was a three-star recruit out of Omaha (Neb.) Elkhorn South, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 5 overall prospect in the state, the No. 37 offensive tackle in the class and the No. 417 overall prospect in the class.

Nebraska OT Teddy Prochazka lost for season

With Prochazka out for the year, he was just the latest Nebraska player added to the list. Rhule mentioned a handful of players that were hurt at the start of Fall camp.

“Excited to get started. A couple of updates,” Matt Rhule said. “Obviously, it’s 120-man roster for camp. As people get hurt you still have the ability to rotate people in. So, that’s not a 120-man roster limit. We still have the whole team but 120-man roster to start camp. Injuries to start camp. Tristan Alvano is limited. So, he’ll be out at the start of camp.”

Of course, Alvano isn’t the only injured Cornhusker heading into camp. Rhule listed five other players as missing time.

“Blye Hill, Barret Liebentritt, Maurice Mazzccua, Brodie Tagaloa, and Michael Booker. So, those guys will not be in that 120 and they will wait until they’re healthy. Then, if someone else gets hurt they’ll replace that as well as some of the other guys we’ve had on our team who worked their tails off. It’s just we have to do a lot of things by numbers,” Rhule said.